Xi’s efforts are restraining consumer spending and making it tougher for the new government to boost domestic demand as factory output slows. Large-restaurant and catering sales fell for the first time in more than three decades in the first two months of the year, while demand and prices for luxury items such as Moutai liquor and Longjing tea have slumped.

“The anti-corruption action by Xi is creating unprecedented phenomena, including an absolute fall in high-end restaurant sales,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the European Central Bank. “It’s certainly a big factor dragging down short-term growth.”

Abalone, baby birds, sharks, big prawns, sea cucumbers and geoduck clams are just some of the creatures who can breathe easier, for a bit at least, but F&B businesses should expect more pain. Sinocism readers have known for months that these campaigns should not be underestimated.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Asia and will be in Beijing this weekend. Reuters reports he will ask China to take a tough stance on North Korea:

Making his first trip to the region since taking office on February 1, Kerry hopes both to persuade China to use its economic and diplomatic leverage to try to temper North Korea’s behavior and to reassure U.S. allies Japan and South Korea.

“We really want them to … carry some tough messages to Pyongyang” on denuclearization, a senior U.S. official told reporters traveling with Kerry, who arrives in Seoul on Friday, in Beijing on Saturday and in Tokyo on Sunday.

Korean music sensation Psy will release his much-anticipated sequel to “Gangnam Style” Friday, giving fans the chance to hear it live for the first time the following night, according to his official Twitter account.

More than 50,000 fans are expected to pack Seoul’s World Cub Stadium on Saturday to see “Gentleman,” in a comeback performance that will also be streamed live on YouTube.

What are the odds the young, chubby Korean in Pyongyang is jealous of the young, chubby Korean singing tonight in Seoul and will try to steal the global spotlight?

Today’s Links:

THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT

China reports another H7N9 death, infections rise to 38 – Xinhua Five more cases of H7N9 bird flu — three in Shanghai and two in Jiangsu Province — were reported on Thursday, bringing the total number of people infected in China to 38, including 10 that have died. // New technology speeding progress on bird flu vaccine | Reuters Even as U.S. officials this week awaited the arrival of a sample of the new bird flu virus from China – typically the first step in making a flu vaccine – government-backed researchers had already begun testing a “seed” strain of the virus made from the genetic code posted on the Internet.// Bird Flu Causing Suffocation Shows Severe Spectrum of New Virus – Bloomberg Her illness, the first H7N9 avian influenza case to be described in a medical journal, highlights the seriousness of the new strain, which has sickened at least 38 people in eastern China, killing 10, in the past two months. Hospital doctors didn’t know the cause of the woman’s illness when she was admitted. Tests identified the H7N9 virus after she died.

President Xi calls for strengthened navy – Xinhua | English.news.cn Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged the Navy to strengthen itself. He visited the People’s Liberation Army Navy troops stationed in Sanya. // Xi Jinping calls on navy to be prepared for struggle | South China Morning Post President Xi Jinping inspected the navy’s South Sea fleet in Sanya…Xi urged soldiers to be better prepared for military struggle in the inspection on Tuesday, which was only reported by state and military media yesterday. The visit came one day after Xi made an unprecedented visit to fishermen who spend most of their working lives in disputed waters in the South China Sea – a move seen as sending a message to China’s neighbours involved in territorial disputes. // 人民日报-习近平视察海军驻三亚部队时勉励官兵 牢记强军目标献身强军实践 中共中央总书记、国家主席、中央军委主席习近平在出席博鳌亚洲论坛2013年年会相关活动后，专程来到海军驻三亚部队，代表党中央、中央军委向官兵们致以诚挚的问候，勉励大家深入抓好党的十八大精神学习贯彻，牢记党在新形势下的强军目标，坚定强军信心，献身强军实践。这是4月9日，习近平在井冈山舰上与舰载直升机飞行员亲切握手。// 高清：习近平视察海军驻三亚部队_新闻_腾讯网pictures of Xi Jinping on his visit with the troops in Hainan, wonder what he is looking at through the periscope // [视频]习近平视察海军驻三亚部队_新闻频道_央视网CCTV Evening News on Xi Jinping’s visit with the military in Hainan

Authorities Investigating Suspect Trade Figures – Economic Observer Online -A report in today’s 21st Century Business Herald cited an anonymous source as saying that the unusual increase in trade between Hong Kong and the mainland had already attracted the attention of regulators. The source also said that a special investigation had been launched, but that it was still too early to determine whether some exporters have been falsyfying data. The newspaper also quoted another person working in foreign trade who linked this excessive growth to some provinces and cities seeking to maintain foreign trade growth targets and political achievement goals //China Customs Official Apologizes for Incorrect Investment Data – Bloomberg Zheng Yuesheng, spokesman and head of the statistics department at the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs, said in a statement today that he “expresses deep apologies” for citing unconfirmed investment data from online sources he didn’t identify.

China credit: still fuelling the machine | beyondbrics China isn’t holding back in its financial support for a flagging economy. The latest lending figures, published on Thursday, show banks made new local-currency loans totalling Rmb1.06tn ($171.2bn) last month – far more than forecast by analysts polled by Reuters and Bloomberg. That puts Chinese lenders on target to lend Rmb9tn in new loans this year – well up on last year’s Rmb8.2bn. The broad money supply – M2 – increased 15.7 per cent in March, according to the data from the central bank, well ahead of market expectations of 14.6 per cent. That puts the People’s Bank of China well on the way to meeting its 13 per cent target for the year.// going to get interesting

不动产登记制度比新国五条更猛(橙色视点)—在线播放—优酷网，视频高清在线观看very good video discussion by economic observer reporters about the new real estate measures, and specifically why beijing’s are the strictest and what impact they may have..cites a report from last year saying central Beijing has a higher population density than london or tokyo…7837 people/sq km vs 5437 and 5985 // 北京“城六区”人口密度每平方公里7837人，超伦敦（5437人）和东京（5984人）… 中央“国五条”明确指示各地方可依据自身情况细化之后，我们看到，动真招的只有京版国五条，严收20％交易税、限制单身人口购房指标等，而其他省市除上海明确第三套房不贷款外，大多只是“一句话”表述。那么为何北京版“国五条”最为严厉？“国五条”的可见前景又如何呢？

The Beijing Patient: How Smog Changed Two Lives – China Digital Times (CDT) Cancer is now the primary cause of death in Beijing, and air pollution is a major factor in this grim reality. The capital’s dangerous smog caused an “airpocalypse” this January, leading one public health expert to call the menace “worse than SARS.” Beijing made significant improvements to its measure of air quality in January 2012, more than a year after the U.S. embassy infamously tweeted that the city’s air was “crazy bad.” This is only the first step to solving an enormous public health crisis.In a March issue of China Weekly, reporter Gong Xi tells the story of two women whose lives have been turned upside down by the smog.

China’s Censors Ride Into the Old West and Castrate ‘Django’ | chinafilmbiz 中国电影业务 another observer, my Beijing-based friend “Firedeep,” speculated that “the sudden last-minute blocking of Django Unchained has a lot to do with the unwillingness of SARFT to see a [ratings] system getting further actively discussed, which is always a sensitive and inconvenient subject for them. Drug War, a drug enforcement themed film which was released last Tuesday has already stirred up some notable talk amongst the public regarding SARFT censorship and demands for the launch of a ratings system. With the coming of the Beijing International Film Festival next week, topics about films will predictably go even hotter. So it is reasonably argued that SARFT blocked Django Unchained to avoid any further heating up of these movie-ratings discussions.”BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

China bird flu threatens KFC parent’s winning streak | Reuters “KFC has got off to a very bad start this year, it’s had a double whammy of incidents. But increasingly there’s also much stiffer competition from local quick service restaurants firms,” said Frank Gibson, an independent business consultant based in Shanghai. “Longer term it will be hard for them to maintain the growth they’ve experienced in the past, but this will be more due to a more complex and dynamic environment than necessarily due to the issues they faced in the first quarter of this year.” // there may be more here for short sellers than just sick chickens

Sales of Land for Residential Use Soar in Q1 – Caixin The value of land for residential use sold in the capital in the first quarter was more than 85 percent of the total for all of last year, a report by a real estate services company says. DTZ said on April 9 that 19 plots of residential land were sold for 26.2 billion yuan in Beijing in the first three months of the year.

Doing business in China: Being efficient isn’t enough–UM Global Michigan Being more efficient and innovative should give new companies a big advantage when competing against older firms. But that’s less likely to be the case in China, said Brian Wu, an assistant professor of strategy at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Newer companies have a difficult time competing because of institutional barriers, Wu said. These include building relationships with government officials, dealing with local regulations and getting loans from banks.POLITICS AND LAW

南方周末 – 四川富豪劫long southern weekend piece on the 3 detained sichuan magnates–liu han, wang junlin and deng hong…sounds like may be just the top of a very dirty hotpot // 场反腐风暴正在四川发酵，刘汉、邓鸿等一众富豪均被卷入。多年来，这些与政府关系密切的富豪，或因矿权，或因地产生意，攫取到大批财富。现在，这些往事都被翻了出来。..一位在过去三个月两次被中纪委“传唤”的地产开发商对南方周末记者称，“针对成都官场和商场的调查才刚刚开始，调查的广度和深度均超乎之前预期。”多位接近调查组的人士均印证了这个观点。

统筹两个舆论场 凝聚社会正能量_2013/07_求是理论网essay in latest issue of Red Flag Manuscript by deputy head of Shaanxi propaganda bureau 任贤良 Ren Xianliang about the struggle to win over public opinion in the new media age…In 2010 Ren wrote the book 舆论引导艺术：领导干部如何面对媒体 (The Guiding Art of the Public Opinion is the official English title)..battle for the commanding heights of new media far from over..see this from my old Digicha blog in October 2011 about the 6th plenum of the 17th about social media…that was a declaration of a starting point, not an empty document // 以互联网为代表的新兴媒体异军突起，公共话语权得到最大程度释放，网络空间众声喧哗、肆意表达、无序流淌。“网络推手”、“网络水军”、“网络暴力”等制造的网络舆情波诡云谲，“网络问政”、“网络监督”、“网络审判”等掀起的舆论风暴汹涌澎湃，舆论引导和社会管理难度陡然提升。尤其是2010年微博兴起，开启了“全民皆记者”的“微时代”，鸡毛蒜皮的事都可能被“围观”放大成极具轰动效应的重大舆论事件。更为严峻的是，一些势力操纵网络舆论，编造政治谣言，恶意抹黑党和政府形象，瓦解党的执政根基。2013年“南周”新年献词事件，公然挑战党的新闻管理制度。而一些人员利用网络创设“个人媒体”，言论行为“无拘无束”、“无法无天”，其影响力不亚于一份报刊、一家通讯社。如个别人打着反腐旗帜，没记者证却打着“记者”的旗号，通过在境外注册网站，然后“出口转内销”，用爆料手段，要挟、绑架地方党委政府。有人甚至将网上的乱象称之为一场“网上文化大革命”。..即使对那些强势媒体、知名网站和名人博主、微博大V，在管理上也必须敢于碰硬，该警告的警告，该禁言的禁言，该关闭的关闭。只要违法违规违纪，就坚决依法处理，决不手软。只有将包括网络在内的新兴媒体，像现实社会一样依法管理起来，才能为我所用、不受其害，也才能还公众一个规范有序、文明健康的网络世界。

Story of Women’s Labor Camp Abuse Unnerves Even China – NYTimes.com “After getting out, Ms. Wang broke into a cold sweat,” wrote Yuan Ling, an investigative journalist with Lens Magazine, a monthly Chinese magazine of photography, news and culture. Published last week, the story has shocked even people here long familiar with tales of maltreatment, even torture, within the sprawling, police-run, camp system that exists outside the judicial system

央视曝光纪委书记上班看黄网 被发现后抱电脑逃跑_新闻_腾讯网CCTV News cameras catch a local Hunan disciplinary official watching adult videos at work, he runs away, gets fired…CCTV undercover report as part of coverage of implementation of Xi’s directives to change work styles…has to be a market for filters that block government office networks from accessing sites like these, taobao etc…not like the technology is not here, could be a big money making opportunity// 昨天，央视新闻联播节目播出了湖南湖北纪检部门暗访干部作风的情况，其中郴州马头岭乡纪委书记杨某上班看黄色网页时被查到，随后抱着电脑逃跑。他被免除一切职务。

In China, Feudal Answers for Modern Problems – NYTimes.com – Yu Hua Instead of mobilizing the police, however, the canny district chief summoned a dozen or so practitioners of feng shui. They calmed the protesters, assuring them that when the graves were swept away it signified a fortune in the making. As folk wisdom has it, water is wealth — and an encounter with water means you will get rich. The protesters didn’t trust the government, but they did trust the feng shui masters.

Ten-Year Old Girl Appeals for Help from China’s First Lady | Seeing Red in China “Grandma Peng, how do you do? I’m a student at Hupo Elementary School in Hefei, Anhui. I’m ten years old. In the afternoon on February 27 this year, several policemen came to my school and took me away. A few days ago, many uncles and aunties who are concerned about me wanted to send me back to school, but the teachers in my school won’t let me. Grandma Peng, I really want to go back to school. Please, can you and Grandpa Xi tell uncle policemen and the teachers to let me go back? Zhang Anni, April 10, 2013.” The letter is a hot topic on Tencent Weibo and has been re-posted many times.FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS

Will Chinese Troops Cross the Yalu? – By Robert A. Wampler | Foreign Policy Then, as now, the role Beijing would play in resolving the crisis was a major unknown. But a partially declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report from late January 1994 — published for the first time here and on the National Security Archive’s website — laid out Beijing’s options and possible responses, ranging from economic sanctions to war against North Korea. The report notes that the Chinese needed to “reconcile their interest in stability on the Korean Peninsula and long-standing ties to Pyongyang with their interests in a denuclearized peninsula, in avoiding isolation among UN Security Council (SC) members, and in maintaining stable relations with the US, Japan and South Korea.”

Space plays a growing role in U.S.-China security talks: official | Reuters The United States has formal space security dialogues with Russia and other countries, and eventually hoped to set up a similar regular exchange with China, Rose said. “Longer-term that’s where the United States would like to do … but we’re not there yet,” Rose said, although he said China appeared more willing to engage on such issues. In his speech, Rose said talks with China were taking place both on a bilateral basis and in multilateral forums such as the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

State broadcaster CCTV slams anti-Japanese war dramas | South China Morning Post State-run CCTV News aired a feature on Wednesday criticising the rise in “crude and shoddily produced” anti-Japanese war dramas, which were neither patriotic, historically accurate nor educational. “I believe there should be a clear bottom line to these anti-Japanese war dramas, as they should not go as far as to insult the intelligence of audiences,” Ni Jun, associate professor at the Central Academy of Drama’s Cinema and Television Department, told CCTV.

Apple Agrees to Pay $53M to Settle iPhone Warranty Lawsuit | Gadget Lab | Wired.com may inspire class action suits in China? always sensitive here, might be a good test to let one run against a foreign firm?// The settlement, (.pdf) set to be filed in a San Francisco federal court in the coming weeks, provides cash payouts to potentially hundreds of thousands of iPhone and iPad Touch consumers who found Apple unwilling to repair or replace their faulty phones under Apple’s one-year standard, or a two-year extended, warranty

被诉侵权 腾讯微信陷“专利”纠纷_财经频道_一财网Shandong firms says it has sued Tencent for violating its patents in the WeChat product// “微信收费”风波尚未平息，腾讯微信，又陷入“专利侵权”的质疑。昨日， 创博亚太科技（山东）有限公司（下称“创博亚太”） 首席执行官李强对《第一财经日报》记者表示，创博亚太已经以侵害发明专利权为由，在济南市中级人民法院向腾讯发起诉讼，该案件已被法院受理，并将在今年5月8日开庭。不过，腾讯方面昨日则向本报记者称，腾讯目前并未接到法院关于此事的诉讼通知，此外未作更多回应。

ID cards needed to buy telephone service |Policy and Regulation |chinadaily.com.cn The government plans to ask people to present their ID cards when they apply for fixed-line telephone services or buy wireless Internet cards. The move comes after the country launched its real-name registration system for mobile phone users about three years ago. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published a draft proposal asking telecom operators to collect ID information from customers buying fixed-line phones or Web cards.

SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY

《出租屋》_项新平_博联社sobering pictures of the living conditions of some of the 500,000 migrants workers in Yongkang, Zhejiang// 浙江永康有外来人员50多万人，有打工的，有做点小生意的，有跟随父母来读书的等等。高房价、高房租，就是城市居民也有许多人买不起房，大量的外来民工租不起房，但为了工作、生活，许多外来民工就租用城市公寓、地下室、车库，租住城郊、农村一些破旧、阴暗、潮湿的老房生活，为了改变生活他们还艰苦奋斗着。他们在这里生活、劳动、休息、学习，在出租屋里每天也都会发生各种各样的故事。农民工的生存现状时时触动我的神经。在这二三年里，我常常利用业余时间背着相机深入外来民工中记录一些出租屋的资料作为一个历史档案存放着。

Chinese on the train | Offbeat China Below are pictures taken by Chinese photographer Wang Fuchun, who used to work at China’s Brother Rail. He loves trains; and he loves taking pictures. His pictures record pieces of life on China’s traditional “green-skin” trains from 1982 to 2000, before the advent of the flashy high-speed bullet train. The pictures have led to quite some nostalgia on Weibo

北大卖猪肉校友受邀回校讲创业_北京新闻·社会_新京报电子报Beida grad who is now a pork merchant returns to campus to talk about being an entrepreneur, apologizes for embarrassing the school// 新京报讯 （记者郭少峰 邓琦）“我给母校丢了脸、抹了黑，我是反面教材。”2000年因干上杀猪一行而闻名的北京大学毕业生陆步轩，昨天站上母校的讲台，说完这第一句话，几乎哽咽。

Intertwined Entities: Freeman Lau’s Book List—A Conversation with Zara Arshad | Designers & Books Internationally renowned product and graphic designer Freeman Lau (Lau Siu-Hong), with more than 300 awards to his name, has designed everything from posters and books to prize-winning water bottle packaging and a series of intertwining chairs and stools. He is also recognized for his work as an educator and curator, and in 2011 was a curator of the Beijing International Design Triennial. Lau’s book CMYK (2012) was just released in Hong Kong and Beijing this past December. Design China’s Zara Arshad, in an interview for Designers & Books, sat down with Freeman Lau recently to talk about reading, writing, designing, and publishing books in Hong Kong and mainland China

饮用水协会确认农夫山泉标准不及自来水|农夫山泉|饮用水|怡宝_新浪财经_新浪网Nongfu Spring water not even up to tap water standards…// 农夫山泉“品质风波”继续发酵。中国民族卫生协会健康饮水专业委员会秘书长马锦亚昨天向本报记者确认，农夫山泉执行的标准的确不如自来水标准。他表示，任何瓶装水企业都必须以国家强制性标准——GB5749《生活饮用水标准》为底线，若不能执行则有违反国家食品安全法之嫌。

British shops ration baby milk as Chinese demand surges | Reuters British shops are rationing sales of baby milk after Chinese visitors and bulk buyers cleared their shelves to send it to China, where many parents fear the local versions are dangerous. The British Retail Consortium (BRC), whose members account for 80 percent of the sector, said many stores had imposed a two-box limit on each customer to deter the “unofficial exports” to China.

BEIJING

北京确认将调整出租车运价 收益将主要归司机_新闻_腾讯网Beijing govt confirms it will raise taxi prices, take other measures to make it easier to get a cab and allow the drivers to earn a living wage

Beijing rejects rumor of human H7N9 infection – People’s Daily Online Beijing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Beijing-based Xuanwu Hospital both rejected the rumor that the hospital received patients suspected of being infected with the H7N9 virus, Beijing News reported Thursday.//a few versions of these rumors going around Beijing, so far no indications they should be believed

JOBS AND EVENTS

WildChina Beijing Event On April 24th, our newest Where the Wild Things Are will feature renowned journalist, Jane Perlez. A long-time foreign correspondent for The New York Times, Jane is currently serving as the paper’s Chief Diplomatic Correspondent in China. Blurring the line between journalism and exploration, Jane’s assignments have led her all over the world; from Somalia and Poland to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where her reporting on the Taliban and al Qaeda won her the 2009 Pulitzer Prize

Jobs | ATLAS-China ATLAS client companies are currently looking to fill the following positions. In general, we provide our clients with a list of candidates fitting their criteria that is drawn from our network of ATLAS professionals. Interviews are arranged by us for the applicants they approve. Once you have completed the application specific to a position you are interested in, we will coordinate with you to further discuss the client’s requirements and placement process.

I was happy to hear from a reader yesterday that he found his new job through a listing here. If you are hiring for positions that may be relevant to the 10,000+ Sinocism readers please send me the link.